letter

I’m a little late in sharing this (it was published last Friday), but it is still worth a read. My wife has another post on the Dayton Moms Blog and it gives a little peek into our journey of being a blended family.

Before we added to our family through adoption, we took on the challenge of blending a family of three boys and one girl spaced out from elementary school through a new high school graduate. Like most families, this was new territory for us and we faced a few challenges. Cheryl writes about that in her post.

I joked with her that her post makes me sound smarter than I really am, but I loved her honesty in this particular paragraph:

He told me to be patient and that was so hard. I wanted an instant family, I wanted you to just fit right into our family with my kids, and that was so selfish of me. Being patient was hard, but oh the wonderful things I was able to see and observe in that time. I watched you grow and mature from a distance.

In his latest offering, Mark Driscoll writes about the importance of finding our identity in Christ and not in our accomplishments or failures. Through the pages of the book Driscoll shares stories from people who have wrestled with their identity in Christ in light of past experiences. One woman talks of surviving brain cancer along with struggling with some issues with her family. In referring to her past experiences she says this: “They may help explain me, but they don’t define me.”

In the opening chapters Driscoll identifies a distinction between a biography and a testimony. A biography is about person’s life, accomplishments and determination. A testimony is about Jesus and how He steps in to be our Savior. Our story is more about our testimony – who we are in Christ and what He has done for us – than a biography based on our own efforts and experiences.

Each of the chapters start with the phrase “I Am” and each spells out a different aspect of our identity in Christ. To help explain our identity, he walks through the book of Ephesians and uses Paul’s words to help us see who God wants us to be.

While I thought all of the chapters were well written, I thought the chapters on suffering and spiritual gifts were well written. Driscoll ends each chapter with the scripture references he used. It is obvious he spent quite a bit of time in study as we wrote this book.

Who Do You Think You Are is a good read on our identity in Christ and a good resource for those studying the letter to the church in Ephesus. He uses a lot of scripture throughout the book, but also adds personal stories from people who have walked through these identity issues. It is a good read.

Ok….this is funny! I am getting ready for a week at church camp, so got an extra chuckle out of this letter. While the camp I’m going to is not anything like what this boy writes about, it is kind of the worst case scenario of kids going off to camp. Hope you can laugh along…if you haven’t had an experience like this.

Dear Mom & Dad

We’re having a great time here at Lake Typhoid! Scoutmaster Webb is making us all write to our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and worried. We are okay. Only 1 of our tents and 2 sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Chad when it happened.

Oh yes, please call Chad’s mother and tell her he is okay. He can’t write because of the cast. I got to ride in one of the search & rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn’t been for the lightning. Scoutmaster Webb got mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn’t hear him.

Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blow up? The wet wood still didn’t burn, but one of our tents did. Also some of our clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back.

We will be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Webb gets the car fixed. It wasn’t his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked okay when we left. Scoutmaster Webb said that a car that old you have to expect something to break down; that’s probably why he can’t get insurance on it. We think it’s a neat car. He doesn’t care if we get it dirty; and if it’s hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate. It gets pretty hot with 10 people in a car. He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrolman stopped and talked to us.

Scoutmaster Webb is a neat guy. Don’t worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Terry how to drive. But he only lets him drive on the mountain roads where there isn’t any traffic. All we ever see up there are logging trucks.

This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming out in the lake. Scoutmaster Webb wouldn’t let me because I can’t swim and Chad was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scoutmaster Webb isn’t crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn’t even get mad that we didn’t use life jackets.

He has to spend a lot of time working on the car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble. Guess what? We have all passed our first aid merit badges! When Dave dove in the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works.

Also Wade and I threw up. Scoutmaster Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken.

I have to go now. We are going into town to mail our letters and buy bullets. Don’t worry about anything. We are fine.

Love, Billy

P.S. How long has it been since I had a tetanus shot?

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.